"Ware is building mathematical lattices out of semantic units. But I’m with cbren and a lot of folks – it doesn’t have any humanity for me. There is an undercurrent of sneering black humor, an acceptance that drudgery and boredom are one’s lot in life, a wallowing in being unwilling to change one’s situation. Soul-crushing despair is not the price you pay for genius. To me, Ware’s work is really boring. He is definitely a talented, highly intelligent person, but I don’t get anything out of his narratives other than the structure and the design. I’m probably wrong, but I have the feeling that folks sometimes equate depression and intelligence with worth. There’s so much smart culture that is enjoyable or exciting or beautiful, but Ware sucks the life out of me without giving anything back. I’m not meaning to sound vitriolic, either, and I think I understand his appeal, but I’d rather read CF." -J.O.
"this obliterated the distinction between data and Instructions. In the end, they were all numbers. For every computable number, there must be a corresponding machine number." -James Gleick
“Eighty percent of success is showing up." -Woody Allen
Jesse lent me the most recent Acme Novelty Library (Lint) a couple weeks ago, and I really wanted to read it, the preeminent example of modern comics craftsmanship, but I couldn't stomach it after the first couple of pages:
Ware is, for sure, the penultimate craftsman, but Lint is like craft in a vaccuum, with blinders on - he's dialed in his form, but the pictograms rely too much on craft qua craft to the detriment of aesthetic or narrative concerns. They're too concerned with consistency; Like the man says:
"Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete."
And the drawings are like Richard McGuire's later stuff: too anal-stage-y for me. They lack romance, beauty - poetry.
I like how diagrammatic it is, though; I've been trying to be more prose-y, myself, lately, but I try to avoid making a slick machine of it:
Is this really the best we can do?
51 comments:
don't understand
seems like this is abstract expressionism vs minimalism or something
person drinking beer vs person drinking coffee/tea
'The story is the expected middle class curmudgeonly white person schtick'
'folks sometimes equate depression and intelligence with worth.'
perhaps you fault him for his narrative as a person and its public reception/integration?
My personal biases are part of this, of course, but I favor abstract expressionism and minimalism. The point was that Lint is just sucky. Said suckiness is revealed by the obvious, hamfisted plot; stereotyped characters; cliche moralism (racists are bad, men who hit women are bad - both true, of course, but duh); boring, "ambitious" structure (one person's whole life); no poetry (no poetry); lame drawings; etc.
Again, Ware is smart and well-cultured, I'm sure, but one of the pitfalls of his craft is tunnel vision: you work so hard to fit everything into units that, in turn, will fit your elegant system that you lose subtlety, reality, beauty.
"perhaps you fault him for his narrative as a person and its public reception/integration?"
Nope - I have a similar narrative to his if you look at it in macro, but the way he generalizes limits him to depression, loneliness, obviousness.
I like particulars because I know my system will never be complete, and I enjoy surprise.
fuck you. fagots
Also, through Woody Allen's name I linked to his 'Another Woman,' which (like 'Interiors') to me is a truly beautiful/lyrical/sophisticated naturalistic character study. That is my favorite genre which is why I find 'Lint' so dissapointing.
kuck ku, fake ULAND
And, like Ware, I am too often guilty of patterning that gets in the way of story.
i am on the brink of suicide, will anyone help me force this meme to stay alive, C Bring i am looking at you for real, let me not die
as a human torch
on the edge of virtual communication's possiblititiies
word verification: saucolito
@Jason
WHAT. IS. COFFEE.
@futuregenerations
I had a walkman in 6th grade and i played mostly cowboy tapes
@ANDYBURKDOHDOLDR
as a perifermal characharter
anti spam: CONGST
CONGST.
What I'm on right now. Heavy.
Dead Mau Five
"but the pictograms rely too much on craft qua craft to the detriment of aesthetic or narrative concerns. "
I disagree. You made this comment right under an image of the opening pages of the book which I think (more so than the rest of the book, you may say) are evidence of Ware using his craft in service of the narrative. It seemed here (I'm sure someone's already pointed this out) like he was trying to do the Portrait of the Artist and a Young Man thing and portray each stage of a life in the way in which it is perceived by one in that stage.
I can relate to your fatigue with Ware's themes or mood that he keeps returning to. ("he way he generalizes limits him to depression, loneliness, obviousness"). But I still feel like the power of the book isn't blunted by it being along similar lines to his previous work. While the book is "depressing" and in the end seems very much about "loneliness" I think the real hard-hitting themes and points he gets across were outside of those...Lint is a cautionary tale about playing a victim so single-mindedly throughout a life that you become a victimizer (to put it in unflatteringly simple terms). After getting over my initial fatigue with the Ware universe of alienating middle-class suburbia I found this book powerful and absolutely terrifying.
What do you mean by "no poetry"? why do you think the drawings are "lame"?
'I favor abstract expressionism and minimalism'
not to be glib, but this is someone who drinks beer and coffee
honestly seems like you're faulting ware for adhering to a 'designer' archetype while remaining humanistic
'Narrative' was a poor choice of words; I meant actually what you're talking about, i.e, that his formal concerns dictate the content in a way that leads to a programmatic story (and drawings), the opposite of Chester Brown's awesomely ambitious 'Underwater,' for instance. It's life as formula but not explored in a way that is self-aware. His formal concerns amount to the most basic way he thinks about these things (simplistic/reductive) that have, in turn, due to Ware's popularity, reduced 'cartooning' to mean simplification.
"Lint is a cautionary tale about playing a victim so single-mindedly throughout a life that you become a victimizer (to put it in unflatteringly simple terms)."
This is very simple and not illuminating (I mean, his themes, not your description). Read Sacher-Masoch or the Marquis de Sade for much more complex, less simplistically moralistic versions of this idea.
"What do you mean by "no poetry"? why do you think the drawings are "lame"?"
I like his design sense, but the way he distills forms to geometric abstractions is uninteresting/uninspired. It reminds me of Dilbert. Is Dilbert poetic?
comment got lost:
'I favor abstract expressionism and minimalism'
this is someone who drinks beer and coffee
honestly seems like you're faulting ware for adhering to a 'designer' archetype while aspiring to represent the complexities of life
not interested in defending ware as much as i am the modernist / minimalist archetypes
constructing virtual worlds (or different variations on a single virtual world) is ware's lifetime project
this necessarily involves compression
and like any modernist project may instill a false sense of progress in the creator as he or she becomes more and more immersed in his or her own language
you are interested in reality in the present moment as opposed to ware's virtual obsession with the past
he is creating his own sims universe and tweaking its code constantly
suppose if i were to continue this line of argument i would question the limits between the real and the virtual
comment got lost (2x):
'I favor abstract expressionism and minimalism'
this is someone who drinks beer and coffee
honestly seems like you're faulting ware for adhering to a 'designer' archetype while aspiring to represent the complexities of life
not interested in defending ware as much as i am the modernist / minimalist archetypes
constructing virtual worlds (or different variations on a single virtual world) is ware's lifetime project
this necessarily involves compression
and like any modernist project may instill a false sense of progress in the creator as he or she becomes more and more immersed in his or her own language
you are interested in reality in the present moment as opposed to ware's virtual obsession with the past
he is creating his own sims universe and tweaking its code constantly
suppose if i were to continue this line of argument i would question the limits between the real and the virtual
comment got lost (3x):
'I favor abstract expressionism and minimalism'
this is someone who drinks beer and coffee
honestly seems like you're faulting ware for adhering to a 'designer' archetype while aspiring to represent the complexities of life
not interested in defending ware as much as i am the modernist / minimalist archetypes
constructing virtual worlds (or different variations on a single virtual world) is ware's lifetime project
this necessarily involves compression
and like any modernist project may instill a false sense of progress in the creator as he or she becomes more and more immersed in his or her own language
you are interested in reality in the present moment as opposed to ware's virtual obsession with the past
he is creating his own sims universe and tweaking its code constantly
suppose if i were to continue this line of argument i would question the limits between the real and the virtual
"this is someone who drinks beer and coffee"
Ha! Yes. More information bandwidth.
"this necessarily involves compression"
Yes
"suppose if i were to continue this line of argument i would question the limits between the real and the virtual"
I like that! But it boils down to Ware's work being ugly to me, neither workin as humanistic or aesthetic enterprise. I enjoy the patterning but not the pattern
And I see myself more as an information designer than storyteller so I am partial to that mode.
i wish chris ware's comics were about an underground civilization of warring tribes of miniature fuzzy hippos that possessed incredibly detailed costumes, iconography, and insignia
guess that wouldn't play to the big wigs over at N.P.R. (nazi-nal politburo radicalo)
Dudes. I am WAY too color blind for this current design. It hurts my head and makes me feel handicapped. This may be a good thing.
^ melt ur face off; tell the world
@J.T.
Thanks for your thoughts on the design. So glad you enjoy being temporarily disabled!
By any chance did you have a near-death experience last year?
I may be confusing you with someone else..
jason i could see you having a turnaround about ware, kinda like people have to "learn" to like panter. it might click at some point in a weird way?
hamfistedness, cringe-able elements, true. i guess i forgive ware because after reading his work for so long, a single piece of the pie is just that. and i totally have a subscription to his restaurant, which i intend to honor. i prefer pecan (quimby strips) to strawberry (jimmy corrigan) and i'm really not down with apricot (building stories) but it's nice to see the changes take place. things i might enjoy in his work, he probably hates.
but you're not allowed to write a post about the tezuka DVD until you have watched the whole thing, even if the first couple minutes bug you! ;);););););););););)
Vomits Vomits is a normal person????
i'm normal like leaves on a tree
it's springtime, byaches
@self
geography dependent, it's kinda warm where i am. relatively speaking.
jason, dilbert is totally poetic. but i doubt that poetic logic is fully deliberate. for sure, it's partially there, though. jim davis must've been conscious of his "style" before anyone started adding alternate captions to swerve his narrative. all those stiff lines take me some-where, but i'm not at all sure of where.
and, of course, i'm never sure of ware. which is what makes him so much fun. :)
PS i know the diff between davis and scott adams. that's really a more pressing question. which is more stiff? it's really a gamble. who is the most stiff daily strip cartoonist. i vote jason overby. actually, i vote jeff macnelly. jest kiddin.
AWWWWW DAWG
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
i have no words to express this
@VOMITS - probably will never have that Ware epiphany, but I've been known to cultivate reactionary stances that I later get tired of. Don't think this is one. RE Tezuka video: just watched 15 minutes or so, but it's awesome
So wait, did you read this book Jason?
I didn't finish it, but I read some. I feel like I his work generally extrapolates fractally (or maybe just geometrically) so that I don't need to read the whole book to get the gestalt. Again, see Sacher-Masoch.
In other words, whereas the movie I referenced contains a lot of incidental data, existential details, and nuance making it more than the sum of its parts, I rarely find Ware to be that way. So reading the book (particularly when I don't enjoy the drawings) offers little more than a synopsis of the book.
@Jason what about the reasons for Ware's aesthetic?
do you think it's possible that his complacent humanism run through the tidy flow chart of his design sensibilities reflects the human narrative encountering mid-web 2.0 data accumulation and new algorithms for distributing and attempting to manage human desires on a massive scale (i.e. individuals as merely predetermined segments of a larger set) at the expense of perceived agency?
while Ware's style may not meet your requirements of taste, are its failures (lack of expressiveness, 'simple' forms) nevertheless conceptually effectual at the very least as an internalization of the horrors of the early cyber era...whether by intention or not?
casting aside the more flowery 19th century style of prose, is Masoch really more complex? or any less self-pitying?
i don't see how "playing a victim so single-mindedly throughout a life that you become a victimizer" does not get Masoch on the nose.
for instance in Venus in Furs (the hero supposedly reflective of the author's own experiences and philosophies) the contractual arrangements Severin demands in love are draconian, and he basically wants to 'top from the bottom' so severely that his beloved eventually leaves him for another man. his response involves little self-evaluation as he blames her weakness of character for everything.
maybe i'm reading you wrong though. i'm insanely high right now :(
"I don't need to read the whole book to get the gestalt."
Then I would say it's fair to complain about Ware's drawing style but as for saying there's no poetry, subtlety, reality, beauty, etc. I think you have to read the book before you pass judgment. Poetry and subtlety by their nature take time to reveal themselves. Right?
wha happen
Also Andrei just sent me weird spam. Has his mind been taken over by a virus?
@everything: eventually there'll be an app for it
@Velvets
"conceptually effectual at the very least as an internalization of the horrors of the early cyber era...whether by intention or not? "
Maybe and it's not that unlikely that it's intentional, but it represents the failure of high concept pop art for me in general: the hewing too close to the structure at the expense, for me, of beauty. There's some great article by Zadie Smith (I think it was a speech she gave) in the Believer a few years ago where she talks about starting with a conceptual skeleton, some pattern to organize how you proceed writing a book (or making a comic, album, movie, etc) that you must at the end rip out. It hit close to home for me. I gravitate toward making high concept comics, but when I break my precious structures, more interesting things always emerge (for me).
"for instance in Venus in Furs (the hero supposedly reflective of the author's own experiences and philosophies) the contractual arrangements Severin demands in love are draconian, and he basically wants to 'top from the bottom' so severely that his beloved eventually leaves him for another man. his response involves little self-evaluation as he blames her weakness of character for everything."
I guess you're right if Sacher-Masoch really sees Severin in himself, but as a character, he seems "realistic.". And weirder and the story is more interesting to me than Lint. The fact that Sacher-Masoch isn't moralizing through Severin but portraying a reactionary response to his character being threatened is more interesting. But it's probably been fifteen years since I read that book!
@TeeSeeYes
Poetry, for me, is something that mostly happens spontaneously, but, yeah, depth often builds over the course of a work. So like VV said, I might like it if I could break through and read it fully.
vintage bondage mask with Warhol banana screen print, signed by Chris Ware in his own blood, well used $756 with certificate of authenticity
paypal, credit card, COD, money order accepted
I had a near death experience last year. I called it "divorce." Also, I'm permanently handicapped by arthritis, anyway, so what's a few color blind eyeball kicks, more or less?
You comrades won't be happy until everyone makes the same income as everyone else; when everyone lives in the same squalid flat as everyone else; and when we're all bound by chains by a dictator like Jospeh Stalin.
We live in a country where people can buy anything they want--they can choose to buy "organic" produce from esoteric grocers; they can buy TV sets as large as a small barn; they can buy all-terrain vehicles, and sports' cars, and cell phones that exceed the processing power of personal computers. We CAN get healthcare services from redi-med centers and clinics, and we have pharmacys open 24 hours a day.
You complainers could get all of this, but you're too busy looking over your shoulder, wondering what the other guy has--all you look at is the money they make, and you think because he made more than you last year, he must've stolen it somehow. You people think all wealth is part of the same pie, and that there's no way that someone can earn or create a SECOND pie. You all dwell so much on the percentages and statistical averages of this group or that group--get over it, get to work, and start being responsible about your financial lives.
I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself."
Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.
'lame' is ableist. just a thought
Is that related to the Building Story?
@Anonymous Good guess. The Building Story was exactly what I had in mind.
@Anonymous @Anonymous
infinite recursion is just deaths
When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as
a pie. "You can't make the pie larger," say politicians.
I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had
all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to
continue to believe something like this well into adulthood.
What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is
not wealth. It's just something we use to move wealth around.
Wealth is as old as human history. Far older, in fact; ants have wealth.
Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt
next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine
condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you
specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in
some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.
In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't
made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in
fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think
there was.
we get it
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